Pretentions
by Septdeneuf
Summary: A charming little coffee chop on an island that's never visited by pirates is an ideal place for Zoro to fall in love with his barista. If only any of it were real. Written for the ZoSan Coffee Shop AU project on Tumblr.


When he got inside and saw the line Zoro almost turned around and left again, but he'd been told by several people that this place had the best coffee on the island, and he was feeling pretty tired. Plus the line had already gathered more people behind him after he'd entered and leaving now felt like admitting defeat.

He decided to use the time to do some people watching. It still seemed improbable to him that there were supposed to be no pirates at all on this island, considering they were in the middle of the New World. An island without criminality and without pirate attacks despite having only a minimal Marine presence seemed almost too good to be true.

But in the coffee shop at least no one looked obviously pirate-ish. Everyone was well groomed, no missing teeth as far as he could see and no eye patches. But then pirates didn't always have to look like that, he supposed. He didn't have enough experience with them to know what other signs to look for.

There was one guy who looked strange to Zoro, with his heart shaped sunglasses and gigantic afro, but there were weirdoes everywhere. Didn't have to mean there were pirates around.

He secretly hoped some might show up at some point. Maybe he'd be able to collect a bounty or two and for some quick money to enhance his pay check. Not that the pay wasn't very good already, otherwise he probably wouldn't have made the long journey to get here. But part of his reasoning had also been the excitement of going to the Grand Line without having to enter military service. If the island really turned out to be as peaceful as advertised he'd be a tad disappointed.

The line was moving pretty slowly, probably because there was only one Barista behind the counter and the guy had apparently made it his personal mission to flirt with every single woman in line and decorating all of their coffees with heart shape designs.

What an idiot.

Though not entirely bad looking Zoro had to admit. He had no idea what was going on with that swirly eyebrow and why the guy's fringe was covering half his face, but his lean figure and relaxed posture made for a nice image. Especially when he turned around to get some ingredients and showed off a well formed backside. And the smile he was offering the women did have some charm to it.

But he was only offering that smile to the women so it didn't really matter anyway.

Zoro looked back over the crowd and had the feeling that the odd man with the afro was looking at him, but with the sunglasses it was impossible to tell. Something about that guy felt off, but Zoro couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"So, do you want to order something or is it enough if I give you some water and then you'll do some photosynthesis on your own?" Zoro hadn't realized that it was his turn already. The barista was leaning on the counter and smirking at him.

"Yes my hair is green, how original of you to notice," Zoro said with a snort. "Think insulting costumers is a good business strategy?"

"Okay a) the length of the line might've clued you in on the fact that this business is actually doing pretty well, and b) how is that an insult? You'd save loads of money on food and never go hungry if you could actually do that, doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. So, have you decided what you want?" The blond waved towards the menu over his head in a grand gesture.

"Uh…" Zoro replied. He'd spent his time waiting in line looking at people, not the menu, which he was only now realizing was needlessly complicated. "Coffee, or something?" He hadn't really meant for it to come out as a question but from his quick perusal of the options he wasn't even certain that they offered normal coffee.

"That's exactly what I wanted to hear", the barista exclaimed, taking out a paper cup and gathering up a myriad of bottles and what Zoro guessed might've been spices. None of them really things he associated with coffee.

"What are you doing?" he finally asked after watching the busy hands work for a moment without a single clue as to their purpose. "What does any of that have to do with coffee?"

"You said: 'or something' and that means I get to create something special for you. You'll love it," the barista assured, pouring some green syrup (or it might've been wasabi, who the hell could tell?) into a mixer.

"And what makes you so sure of that?" Zoro asked.

"Because I'm very very good at what I do," the guy said, leaning over the counter a bit further than really necessary as he handed Zoro his drink. "If you like it, just come back tomorrow and ask for the usual."

"What and you remember the orders of every single costumer in this place?" That would be sort of impressive but looking back at the line that was even longer now than when Zoro had first entered the establishment he doubted it was possible.

"Not everyone no. Only the ones I really like," the blond said with a waggle of his ridiculous eyebrow.

"What and I'm supposed to believe you like me?"

"Silly green hair combined with a way too serious scowl, what's not to like?" Zoro absently noted that the barista's teeth were very nice when he smiled like that. Not that he cared about some random guy's smile of course.

"You are not actually going to remember this," Zoro reiterated. There had to be like ten different things in that cup, there was no way.

"Try me. Come back tomorrow, ask for the usual and if the drink I make isn't the same one as today you get it for free."

"I'll take that bet. I can always use some free stuff."

"Gotta pay for this one, first, though."

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Taking off the lid Zoro had discovered that the entire drink had turned out green which really wasn't what he'd had in mind when he'd gone to a coffee shop. And that the guy had had the nerve to write "for maximum photosynthesis" on the side of the cup.

Taking the first sip he'd discovered that at least the guy hadn't been lying about one thing. He _was _very good at what he did.

As he walked down the rapidly darkening alleyway to his new apartment he tried to figure out what was in the drink that made it so good but he had way too little experience with fancy drinks to make much of an educated guess. Maybe green tea, lemon, too… But it was iced, and refreshing and not sweet at all, and perfect after a long day at work.

He'd actually kind of like having this again. So maybe it'd be nice if the pretentious barista did remember… and maybe smile like that again…

Not that Zoro cared of course.

He was starting to care, however, about the sound of footsteps following him. Light though they were, in the otherwise empty alley they might as well have been a rhinoceros stamping.

So someone on the most peaceful island in the Grand Line was itching for a fight then, after all. Well that Zoro could provide, no problem.

"So, you just happen to have the exact same way home as I do, or are you trying to start something here?" Zoro asked casually as he turned around. The man following him did not seem surprised at having been spotted and stopped a few paces from him. It was the weird guy from the coffee shop with the afro. Seeing him standing Zoro realized he was also impossibly tall.

"Alas, I'm not from around here. I _was _in fact hoping to challenge you to a duel, if you were so inclined?" the man inquired politely.

"Is that what they're calling street brawls these days?" Zoro asked casually. The strange man pulled out something from a bag he'd been carrying, a long white item and held it out to Zoro.

"Not as far as I'm aware, but I have a tendency to be a little behind the times," the tall man admitted. "I was not hoping for a street brawl, however. I was hoping to engage you in a swordfight." Zoro realized the object he'd been holding out to him was actually a sword, with a white sheath and golden handle. It looked pretty expensive, even to the untrained eye.

"What makes you think I know the first thing about swordfighting?", the green headed man grumbled. He did take the sword however, if only to look at it. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen such immaculate craftsmanship and he wanted to examine it more closely.

"I have… let's call it a hunch, for the moment," the man explained.

And then he proceeded to do one of the most horrifying things Zoro had ever seen anyone do.

Pushing his sunglasses up he revealed an odd looking face with closed puffy eyes.

Which he then grabbed at the chin and pulled off. Just pulled it off as if it was an everyday thing to remove body parts. Zoro realized slightly belatedly that it was actually a mask, but that didn't soften the blow any when the white bare bone underneath it was revealed.

"What the hell!?" Zoro exclaimed, jumping a few paces back. He was surprised to see that he'd instinctively drawn the sword, even though he'd never held one before in his life. It felt reassuring to have it there for some reason.

"En garde, if you please," the skull faced man said pleasantly, drawing a sword out of what Zoro had previously assumed as a cane. Well this was not a situation he'd expected to find himself in on his first day at his new job. Being asked to sword fight by a skeleton man with an afro who handed out swords was actually pretty low on the list of things he'd ever expected to be doing.

He raised his own sword to try and defend from the incoming blow by the skeleton man and was surprised by how light the weapon was. And how he didn't even have to think about how he was holding it and how easy it was to parry the next blow. Almost as if he'd actually done this before.

But that was absurd, he…

"_I'm going to be the world's greatest swordsman" _

He shook his head, trying to dislodge his sudden onset headache. His defense was still perfect even though he hadn't thought about any of it, but he didn't have the capacity to marvel at it. He was feeling sick to his stomach suddenly.

_"Well they say that pirates never come to the island. That can't be true," Nami declared. Trying to convince Luffy to pick the least shaky heading of the triple log pose was pretty much guaranteed to fail, but Zoro had to admit, that his curiosity was piqued. There had to be something fishy going on. _

"What the…" He dropped his drink in an attempt to steady himself against the wall. Why hadn't he dropped the sword, he still wanted the drink, the sword held no value to him, he'd payed for the drink…

And then he remembered.

His knees buckled as it all came rushing back to him, a whole different life, his real life. How could he have ever forgotten? About everything, Kuina, Mihawk, _Luffy… _It was completely inexcusable.

"…Brook?" he asked as the spinning in his head subsided, and he looked up to see the skeleton kneeling next to him.

"Ah, so nice to see you remembering. I have to admit if this had failed I'm not sure how I could've made you recall." He offered a bony hand covered in cotton gloves to help him up.

"How long was I…" _out _didn't seem quite accurate even though that's what it felt like to him now. "…Not myself?"

"Just for a few days. I had just located Sanji-san, but I felt it imprudent to try and trigger his memory in such a public forum. But when I spotted you I decided to switch targets with great success."

"What happened? What about the others?" Zoro still felt a little sick. More than that he was beginning to feel incredibly angry. The cook hadn't remembered anything either, and that couldn't be a coincidence. Someone had made them forget the most important things in their lives and it was inexcusable.

"Well upon approaching the island we were rendered unconscious in some manner, but I don't know how since it affected me as well. I woke up later alone on the ship. It appears I was disregarded, _again_ for being dead. I'm honestly not sure if I should be grateful or offended, but I've decided to take advantage of the situation to the best of my ability."

"So then that's why they don't have pirates here? They erase the pirate's memories and turn them into happy little worker bees?"

"So it would appear. I've encountered several faces that are familiar to me from wanted posters, and none of them seemed to know about it. It's entirely possible that the majority of the population consists of former pirates."

"And now what's the plan?" Zoro asked. He hoped it contained tracking down the bastards responsible for this violation and making them suffer. If it didn't already he was sure it could be amended.

"Trying to find the rest of the crew, primarily. I'd suggest that for the time being you continue to go to your workplace as not to alert anyone to your newfound memories while I track down the others." Brook bent down and gathered up the rubber mask he'd previously worn. "Perhaps you could attend the coffee shop more frequently and try to see if you can make Sanji-san remember who he is. As soon as we have gathered everyone I assume some hell will be raised."

Zoro grunted his acceptance. Making the dumb cook remember his own idiocy wasn't going to be his favorite thing to do, but he could see Brook's point in laying low. Thinking back on it he realized Sanji's flirting with the women had been very toned down from his usual self. It would be a pity to bring that back.

"Fine. But most important: Why do you only have Wadou? Where are the rest of my swords?"

"Oh I have them right here, I didn't want to give you all three at once, I feared for my limbs. Non lethal though it may be, I don't quite feel like adding 'but I have no legs' to my skull joke repertoire."

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"_Make the cook remember" _sounded a hell of a lot easier in theory than it was in practice, Zoro mused the next day as he stood in line at the coffee shop. He'd had plenty of time to think during 'work' which was basically just heavy lifting all day. Except nothing they'd made him carry back and forth had even approached his largest weights back on the ship so it wasn't even useful training.

But even with all the time to think he hadn't come up with any strategy to make the cook remember. He'd gotten his own memories back mostly from realizing how well he could handle Wadou, when in the memories they'd constructed for him he'd never even held a sword before. But something similar wouldn't work with Sanji. He couldn't just hand him a spatula and hope he'd remember he was good at making omelets or whatever, since they'd placed him in a food related job anyway.

Maybe he could engage him in a fight somehow, trigger the muscle memory of countless other fights against Zoro before.

"Ah if it isn't green and grumpy! What can I get you? The usual, perhaps?" The huge grin Sanji was giving him seemed completely off. The cook had never smiled at Zoro that way before, only a the girls and sometimes Chopper or Luffy when they did something funny (that didn't have any consequences on their food supply). Having it directed at him felt oddly disarming.

"Gotta test if you remember what was in it," Zoro grumbled.

"Of course I do, I told you I remember the costumers I like," Sanji declared with a cheeky grin. He'd already started gathering up ingredients and from what Zoro could remember it did look like the same stuff.

_Great job showing off your memory, amnesiac cook…_

"So did you like it?" Sanji asked as he poured some water in the paper cup.

"Was okay I guess," Zoro grumbled. No need to feed the cook's ego, if any part of his personality was intact without memories, it had to be that.

"Well then it can't stay the usual, I need something that blows you away. But for now I'll make the same one to prove I remember," Sanji declared. "Your name?"

"What do you need my name for?"

"Standard coffee shop etiquette, write your name on the cup. So what is it? Treebeard? Flip the Grasshopper?" Apparently the amnesia had also not affected the cook's ability to be irritating as hell.

"Zoro."

"Zoro, hm?" Sanji asked, rolling the word around as if he was trying to taste it. "I like it!"

And with a flourish of his marker he handed Zoro the cup. "See you tomorrow, when your usual will be something new and improved to make you sing my praises off rooftops!"

When he left the shop Zoro looked at the cup and realized that Sanji had written the second o in his name with a spiral, ending in a sweeping line. Looking a lot like a certain curly brow.

The drink was the same as yesterday and still very very good.

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The drink the next day was even better. And so was the one after that. And even though he kept trying to tell himself that it was completely impossible because even next to a coffee machine instead of a stove this was still the shit cook, who hated guys and who hated Zoro in particular even more, it seemed like he was flirting with him.

Zoro had tried to make jabs at his eyebrows and get him into a fury like usual, but Sanji had laughed about every single eyebrow joke and made a green hair joke back. He'd yet to call him marimo, though.

And it was damn hard to try and make someone mad when they were smiling at you like that.

Even though he knew the cook couldn't be serious, just couldn't be, Zoro had caught himself thinking 'what if?' more than once during the past week. If it were true, if the cook really were open to something like that what about Zoro? What would he do if he were still the amnesiac worker bee being flirted with by his attractive blond barista?

He knew the answer and he knew where he might like that to lead, but he knew it wasn't possible. And he thought he'd buried all such aspirations years ago when he'd first met the cook who couldn't have been more disinterested in men.

But dammit all, that smile…

He should've switched places with Brook and gone looking for other people instead. The cook probably wouldn't have tried to flirt with that creepy mask the skeleton was wearing to appear normal.

He pushed open the door to the coffee shop and instead of the usual bustle of people he heard shouting.

"It's all a lie! Everything! Can't you see that, they're lying, inside our heads!" A guy was yelling in the middle of the store, waving his arms about wildly.

"Well… I'm sure that's very important, but maybe you could… not yell about it in the middle of the store? Maybe you want a drink? Something nice and soothing? On the house," Sanji offered. He was standing in the middle of the store for once, and it struck Zoro how oddly out of place it looked to see him in a green apron instead of pink.

"How can you think about drinks? Don't you see what they're doing to us? You, too!" The man kept raging. His clothes looked disheveled, but Zoro realized it was a work uniform, so it wasn't some crazy homeless person.

"Look, I'm sorry that you're upset, but this is a coffee shop, you're scaring my costumers. Please calm down," Sanji pleaded.

"You're not even listening to me!" the guy roared. He swung out a fist at the cook quite suddenly, but at a speed that Sanji should've been able to dodge easily.

"Kyaa!" Sanji screamed instead and threw his hands up in a way that was no where near an effective block. He got hit in the face for his troubles. Zoro groaned and rolled his eyes. Not that he didn't enjoy seeing the cook get beat up, but he never enjoyed seeing other people do it quite as much as doing it himself, and this was just embarrassing.

"You're part of the problem!" the guy roared and swung out again. This time Sanji managed to dodge somewhat, but doing that he almost fell over a chair behind him. As the next punch came he found his balance again, and tried to throw a punch himself put his aim was way off and he left himself wide open. Fortunately the enraged guy didn't seem to be much of a fighter himself and missed taking advantage of the opportunity.

"Cook! Kick him!" Zoro roared. He could've intervened of course, but with an opponent like that he really shouldn't have to. This was still the shit cook, after all, girly screams aside (though that was being filed away carefully for future insult reference).

The cook looked at him weird, but as the guy came at him he took the suggestion and kicked out with his left leg. Just seeing the way he shifted his weight Zoro knew that just like him he was still capable of using his regular fighting style despite the memory loss. Seeing the guy fly through half the store and crash into a display of menus was nothing surprising.

To Zoro at least. Sanji stopped where he was, leg still half in the air, staring wide eyed at the guy lying in the debris.

"What the… that's… but that's…" he stammered. His opponent was out cold.

Zoro decided to take charge of the situation since evidently the cook wasn't planning to. He went over to the guy, put his hands in his armpits and dragged him out of the store and on to the street. Didn't look too seriously injured so Zoro had no particular reservations about just leaving him there.

"Okay, everyone out, store's closed", Zoro ordered, and the crowd of onlookers flocked out like a bunch of scared chickens. Pathetic, really, considering that most of them were probably pirates, too. "And cook, put your foot down."

"Ah… oh…" Sanji said finally putting his leg down and looking like he'd just woken up. There was some blood dripping from his nose from the earlier hit.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up," Zoro said.

"Oh… yeah that's probably a good idea…"

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"That was… did you see that?" Sanji asked for about the tenth time as Zoro looked for some more paper napkins to shove up his nose.

"Yes I did."

"I mean how… I've never fought with anyone before. I don't even like doing sports, how the hell did I kick a guy through a wall?"

"You didn't kick him through the wall," Zoro reminded him. "Just a shelf." The kick hadn't been perfectly executed, didn't hit the guy at the right angle and the cook hadn't put all his force behind it.

"That…" Sanji started and Zoro braced himself for a new round of _did you see that? "_That was kind of awesome." A dazed smile was spreading on his face. "I mean… I've never gotten into fight before, I thought I'd just scream like a little girl and run away."

"You're the type for that," Zoro agreed. Oh this would make great ammunition once everything was normal again.

"So why didn't you save me, then? Couldn't be bothered? Or do you just want my annoying face bashed in, what?"

"I would've, if I thought you couldn't take the guy. It's like that fish thing, give a guy a fish and suddenly you're in charge of getting more even though Usopp and Luffy like doing that even if they suck at it." He'd probably gone wrong with that proverb at some point, but in his defense he was still a bit miffed that it had taken him two weeks of being aggressively unhelpful until the cook had stopped asking him to go fish after he'd caught some stuff out of boredom that one time.

"So, you thought I could take him?" The cook looked fascinated by that idea, and his smile was that annoyingly radiant one again.

"Your shelf agrees with me," Zoro shrugged, breaking eye contact to look pointedly at the destroyed piece of furniture. Not because it was making him uncomfortable or anything.

"You had faith in me," Sanji concluded. Zoro went to dap the wet cloth on his face again when suddenly the cook caught his arm with a hand. "You barely even know me, but still…"

This time Zoro couldn't break the eye contact, though he desperately wanted to. Something in the cook's gaze kept him frozen in the moment. Almost like Sanji was seeing him for the first time, and he was awed by what he found there. Of course from Sanji's perspective they'd only known each other for a week, but… no one had ever stared at him quite like this and Zoro wasn't sure how to react.

When the cook's gaze moved to his lips, however, and he started leaning closer to the swordsman's face, he knew exactly how to react. Shove Sanji away, tell him he was sorry but this would never work and then get the hell out of there, the cook could clean up his own damn shop.

Except he didn't do any of that.

Sanji's lips were soft and and none of the alarm bells ringing in his head could stop him from reciprocating when they moved against his. Damn the shitty cook was good at this, and Zoro should really be stopping this, but that was hard when he really didn't want to.

Fotunately he didn't have to, because right then the cook pulled away from him, an odd queasy look on his face. Then he threw up noisily on the floor between them.

And of course Zoro knew he didn't practice kissing all that often, but he couldn't really be that bad at it, right? Vomiting was a bit extreme as far as criticism went.

"How the… How could I forget? The Sunny, All Blue, Zeff, being a pirate…" the cook exhaled, a look of shock on his face.

Oh right. Zoro had felt queasy too when he'd gotten his memories back, that was a much better explanation for the vomiting than what they'd just been doing.

"It's all fake how did they…" Sanji's expression morphed from shock to horror and he looked back up at Zoro. "Oh, hell no!" And it turned into anger.

Shitty cook just had to pick the shittiest moment to regain his shitty memories, didn't he?

"Did we just…? You… oh god…"

"Well, good you finally have your memories back, took you long enough, shit cook," Zoro said, hoping to brush over what had happened. He knew it wouldn't work. "Brook's been trying to find the others, we should help him now that you're finally back to normal."

"You knew! The entire time, you knew!" Sanji jumped up from his seat and pointed a finger accusingly at the swordsman. "You're not brainwashed, are you?"

"I was until Brook gave me my swords back, the others are probably still under the influence, so we should really get…" Zoro attempted to direct the conversation to practical matters.

"You knew, you could've… you took advantage of me!" The ambient temperature seemed to be rising and Zoro knew it was only a matter of time before the cook erupted into flames of rage.

"_You're _the one who started this, not me, you wanna blame someone, go find a mirror," Zoro snapped. Like hell was he just gonna take the cook's bullshit.

"I wasn't in my right mind!" the cook yelled, "You knew exactly what was going on, you should've stopped it!"

"What, and you really think their programming is all that made you do this, huh? Like people who want to stop pirates from pirating would mess around with your sexuality? Get real, cook. Maybe you don't want to admit it to yourself, but don't waste my time with your denial, either."

Sanji looked thrown for a moment, but then his gaze hardened again.

"Get out!" he hissed and pointed at the at the shop's exit.

"I gotta take you to Brook, we have to talk about strategy…" Zoro started, but Sanji cut him off.

"My fucking coffee shop, my rules, you're banned, get out!"

"Suit yourself, shithead," Zoro said casually and turned to walk out. He knew the cook had been gearing for a a fight but Zoro didn't feel like obliging him in this moment. Brook would have to stop by the shop tomorrow then to sort things out.

Hopefully whatever plan they were gonna make would place him and the cook as far away from each other as possible.

Zoro could forget about that kiss as quickly as possible.

A/N: Thank you for reading this far!

This story was written for the ZoSan Coffee Shop AU project on Tumblr, run by kumiko-sama-chan. The idea behind the project is to come up with many different implementations of the coffee shop au and to invite constructive criticism on all pieces in the project.

So, characterization, grammar, writing style, metaphors, whatever bothered you while reading or you thought could be improved: tell me! The project is supposed to be an exercise to better ourselves as writers and getting feedback is essential to that idea. So, hit me!

Also I've been using this story as an exercise to for the first time use the weird english dialogue punctuation where the comma is in the quotation marks, which is the opposite of how it works in my native language and it made me wanna bang my head against a wall several times (god I hate that, having the comma outside is so much more sensible…) So if you see me having it done wrong, please tell me, my instinct goes differently so I might've missed a few spots.


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